I think I’ve mentioned numerous time on this blog that I’m an avid League of Legends fan. I really enjoy following the scene, my preferred team is H2K from Europe and I make sure I watch every match they play during the regular seasons and I thoroughly enjoy watching the big tournaments, always rooting for the EU teams to get far.
I also enjoy all the faces of League, with the two Belgians being my favourite caster and interviewer/caster/doitall. These are people who worked hard to get to where they are, basically gave up their normal life at home to live in a different country and chase their dreams and make a career out of something that was deemed a very odd choice only a few years ago.

Yesterday the League of Legends scene was shook by a revelation by one of the casters that some very personal photos of his were leaked onto the internet. Now let me get one thing straight. People are allowed to make mistakes. At some point on my life I had a longer distance relationship with a guy that I sexted with and also sent one or two naughty pictures. This was a while ago and it’s something I’ve never done anymore after. This was a guy I had known for a longer time (over a year atleast), who I met in person a few times and who I trusted to not spread said pictures when our relationship eventually failed. Luckily for me he never did so my reputation never got tarnished in that way.
However, some people are malicious and will gain your trust with malicious goals in mind. I am 100% sure that this is the case right now seeing as a lot of the controversy happened over snapchat which deletes everything unless you screenshot it, and when you do the person on the other side gets notified. Some malicious person went a step further and used two phones. One to snap on, one to record said snaps. Again, this is malicious, thought out and specifically done to hurt someone. The only victim here is the caster who, next to his trust being tarnished and his persona being defiled, may actually lose his career over this. Good job random malicious girl, you ruined his life. This has been a case of catfishing in extreme form and with only one goal in mind: destruction.

A lot of people are joining the “well he shouldn’t have sent these pictures then” bandwagon. In hindsight that’s easy to say. When it doesn’t involve you that’s easy to say. It’s always easy to say when it concerns someone else. In hindsight I regretted sending some semi-nudes aswell. It’s then that I decided to not do it anymore in the future and I stuck to it, even though I have had boyfriends asking me. It’s something that I know is not safe, because you never know what happens to the pictures in the hands of someone else. It also only confirms to me that in general the internet isn’t 100% safe. It’s why I feel free enough to share with my readers that I have health issues, psychological issues and social issues… But I will never disclose exactly where I live, where I work, where I went to school etc. Because honestly, disclosing too much about yourself in an online world isn’t safe. There may always be a malicious person that can use that information to do… whatever with.

I don’t want to be all negative about the internet and it’s users. The majority are perfectly innocent. They enjoy our new age where we are a lot more online than ever and don’t use it to pursue malicious goals. It has also given people who have trouble with social interactions a “safe place” to get social anyway, without all of the awkwardness. I just want to shine a light on the uglier side of the worldwideweb and maybe give a warning aswell. Everyone is free to do what they want. If you want to send nudes to your boyfriend or girlfriend, by all means do it. If you want to talk about your work, your home, your loved ones please don’t feel like you can’t. But be aware that things online these days are forever and what consequences your personal actions might have. Even if they appear innocent.

Last week I wrote a little thing about having some health issues. Some physical and what I believed to be mostly mental. This week I went to see my doctor and got some clarity on what exactly is happening to me.

I went in with the mindset that I would complain about a cough that wouldn’t go a way and having some difficulty breathing. However when I got to the practice I was more than a little out of breath. This continued after I sat down in the office to which my doctor became very concerned and basically told me off for waiting so long to come to him in the first place. He listened to my lungs (which were clean), took my blood pressure (which was good) and then got scared shitless after seeing my heartrate. It was up to 130 which, by all accounts, is way too high. My oxygen level in my blood was good, but it was costing my body a lot of effort and energy to maintain said levels, thus leading to me feeling exhausted and having trouble breathing.
He made me take some asthma medicine to help my lungs open up a bit in the hope that it would also temper my heart rate. Which initially it did. I dropped down to 110, which is still to high, but not as high as it was. However a few minutes later, after I had to physically exert myself, my heart rate shot up again causing him to plan an emergency ECG just to see if my heart wasn’t the one responsible for me feeling bad. Luckily for me the ECG looked fine and I got sent home with an inhalator and asthma medication and some prednisone for three days to battle whatever was going on in my body.

Today I’m on day two of medication. I can’t say I feel significantly better in the breathing and heartracing department, especially in the afternoon. My body is just completely exhausted and I think I will feel like this for a little while longer. The prednisone seems to do it’s job though. My coughing has been brought down to a bare minimum, my nose cleared up and my eyes aren’t that watery anymore, which is good.
The inhalation thing is draining. I have to do 6×2 inhalations per day. It’s quite a heavy dose and I’m noticing one of the side effects really badly, which is having serious tremors of my hands right after I take the medication. It subsides within 10-15 mins but still, it’s kind of scary. I’m kind of housebound, I can’t really get out and do stuff. Actually my doctor advised me to not do anything for the weekend, which is really stupid but I get it.

So yeah. I’m going back to the doctor on monday to see how my situation has improved and if I’m okay to work again. Even if it’s only for half days. Because sitting at home all day is driving me slightly nuts.

I think one of the reasons I’ve not really had the energy or motivation to write on this blog has to do with me having multiple health issues.
In general I’m not really an unhealthy person. I’m slightly overweight (about 10kg/22lbs) and it bothers me, but not in a way that it’s causing me serious health issues. I don’t really have a superb stamina but I can do my things and go to the gym and not feel like I have to give up on the treadmill, bike or rowing machine after 5 minutes.
I try to eat well. Ofcourse I eat candy, crisps and other types of junkfood, but I try to keep it in check by not eating as much crap during the week and giving myself a bit of freedom during the weekends… And even then I moderate my junk intake.

And yet I feel shitty. As of right now there are multiple reasons for this, most of which are related to mental health and one big physical factor. You see I’ve had a nasty flu at the end of February. High fever, feeling like a wet towel, only wanting to sleep and sleep some more untill my fever died down. After which I was still not feeling well but went into work anyway because I need the money. After that particular flu I kept having a nasty cough. It’s persisted for about two months now, way longer than any cough should persist, and at first I attributed it to being stressed out. Now however I think something more serious is in play as I’m starting to cough up all manners of slime and my entire respiratory system is painful. So I scheduled a doctor’s appointment for next week to check out what is going on in my lungs. Personally I think it’s some form of bronchitis, I atleast check out for all the symptoms of it right now. Let’s hope it’s only that and I will feel better in a few weeks, I really don’t need a serious health problem on top of all the other things that are going on right now.

As far as my mental health goes. I’m actually severely stressed out. I’ve been trying to wrap up my master’s thesis and it’s not going how it should have. And I’m not even really stressed out because of the thesis itself but because of my dad who thinks I’ve already graduated and is now wanting to see my diploma… Which I obviously don’t have. Pack this up with a very stressful time at work where I make tons of extra hours, a lot of funerals/people dieing around me and a general feeling of depression, loneliness and exhaustion and you have the perfect mix for an incoming crash.
I’m working very hard to avoid this. Trying to get my social life back a bit. Trying to lose myself in games, which I find increasinly hard to do. It doesn’t help that I still don’t have a place of my own and am restricting myself to live in a small bedroom where all my stuff is. It’s really not a healthy way to live and it’s starting to seriously get to me. With the housing market being what it is though I don’t see myself moving out anytime soon.. Unless I meet someone and move in with them. And the chances of that happening are even smaller. All of this just messes with your head. You don’t really know what to give your attention to and it all feels so overwhelming that you just end up doing nothing at all. Which is most likely the worst thing you can do.

So right now my life consists of me forcing myself to do things, even though my body is telling me that it wants to lie down and sleep. And if I do give in to that I’ll sleep my whole weekend away. Which is bad. So instead I’m kicking my own butt. Picking up things I’ve neglected (like this blog) and trying to keep some sort of normal rythm going so that I can do what must be done and not feel like an absolute failure all the time. It’s hard.

I hope it gets better.